The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) (18 page)

“No mortal touches that door.  Only the Great Lord may open it; even Hockis doesn’t touch that door.  Now move away from there.  It doesn’t matter who you are,” the guard captain replied.

“What is the meaning of this?” Hockis’s voice boomed from the other end of the chamber.

“I’m here to see Acton,” Grange shouted back.

“You can’t; not until he wants to see you,” Hockis lowered his voice as he approached, using a reasonable tone as he walked up.

“He is the God.  You are a mortal.  He decides who he’ll see, and when.  You go back to your bridal party at the palace, and wait for me to send for you; when Acton wants to see you, he’ll tell me, and I’ll summon you,” Hockis virtually sneered the words.

“I’d like to hear Great Acton himself turn me down,” Grange said evenly.  He was unwilling to back down to Hockis. He had sworn that he would do no harm to the man that Acton improbably trusted, and so he would refrain from delivering the blow he longed to.  But he would give Hockis no respect.

“I remember when you were just a pickpocket on the streets of Fortune.  You may have come up a long way in the world, but you’re not going to be in charge of things here in Acton’s temple.  Now, move along,” Hockis spoke loudly.

Grange glared at the man angrily.  “Energy, raise my voice loudly, so that I can speak to My Lord Acton,” he commanded the power.

“Acton!” his voice thundered so loudly that the guards’ eyes opened in alarm.  “My Lord, I wish to consult with you.”

The voice was powerful, and Grange felt smug.  He had spoken loudly enough to overcome Hockis’s obstruction.  When he spoke to Acton, one of the things he would tell the god would be about the duplicity and treachery of the man.

“It’s me, Grange, your champion,” he added.

There was silence, as everyone awaited the response from Acton.

They all stood, and continued to wait.

The silence continued, and stretched out.  Then it began to grow awkward, and Grange realized with a shock that the god was not going to respond to him.

As the seconds awkwardly became a testament to Acton’s decision to ignore Grange, Hockis began to smile broadly.

“Run along, Champion.  I am the Acolyte here, and I’ll speak for the God, if he wants to speak to you,” Hockis said authoritatively.

Grange exhaled in defeat, and waved his hand to dissolve his protective dome.  Hockis motioned towards his guards.

“Give the mighty Champion room to take his inflated ego out,” he mocked Grange.

Grange refused to look at the man, but stolidly stalked out of the sanctuary, then out of the temple, and into the open air of the temple.

He was dejected and confused.  He wasn’t ready to go back to the palace.

Across the square, ignored by the nighttime strollers, was another temple, a much smaller, more modest building.  The door was open, but no one entered or exited.  It looked to be a safe sanctuary, a place to sit in quiet and salve his wounded ego.

Grange walked to the temple door.  The interior was dark, and he hesitated, then stepped inside.

“Hello, is anyone here?” he called into the darkness.

A light flickered somewhere in front of him, not casting enough light to illuminate the room, but providing a reference point he could travel towards.

“Power, give me the light of a lantern,” he commanded without thinking, and a swarm of points of energy drew together before his eyes, becoming a glowing ball just in front of and above his head, showing him the floor and walls and door way before him.

Grange walked towards the light ahead, which was within a rectangle of darkness framed by a doorway.  On the other side of the wall he found he was in a perfectly square room.  Benches of pews lined all four walls, facing towards the center of the room, where a mild-appearing man stood on a raised platform, holding the lantern that Grange had spotted.

“Welcome visitor.  Please make yourself comfortable,” the man said calmly, ignoring the fact that a ball of light was floating in front of Grange.

“Is there any trouble we may assist you with?” the man asked.

“I need an advisor,” Grange muttered, taking a seat on one of the benches.

The man stepped down from his platform and approached Grange.  He took a seat at the end of the pew on the other side of the aisle, and placed his lantern on the floor between them.

“Your light is very unusual,” the man said, with a gesture to the globe that floated over them.

“I have a gift to use extraordinary powers,” Grange answered.  “I just don’t know how to use them effectively.”

“Is there someone who can teach you?” his host asked Grange.

“Oh,” he sighed.  “I thought there was.  But he doesn’t seem interested in helping.”

“Well, you’ve obviously learned some things already,” the man said.  “Did you discover those on your own, or did you have a teacher?”

“I did have a teacher,” Grange admitted, thinking of Brieed.  “But he’s too far away now.”

“I would say it’s too dark to see you now, except that your power obviously overcomes the obstacle.  Couldn’t you use your power to overcome the obstacle of distance?  Just as you use this power to create light, couldn’t use it to create a way for your words to go over the great distances?” the man asked in such a reasonable tone that Grange stopped to consider the question, before he popped out an automatic denial of the possibility.

“Do you think that’s possible?” Grange asked.  “I don’t have any idea of how it would work,” he expressed his doubt.

“Can’t you imagine any way to do it?  Are there are ways you know to make things travel farther?   Could you copy those methods, or adjust them?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” Grange said, as his eyes stared into the darkness of the ceiling above.  It seemed plausible as he sat in the temple talking to the reasonable man.  “I’m going to think about that.  Maybe there is a way to talk to someone far away,” he mused.

He stood up, feeling calmer and refreshed after just the brief conversation with the priest.

“Thank you,” he told the man who picked up his lantern and also stood.  “Thank you for talking to me.”

“You’re very welcome, and you’re always welcome to come to the temple of Huem, any time you wish,” the man told him, as they walked towards the door.

The god’s name sounded familiar, but Grange was embarrassed to admit he hadn’t known whose temple he had entered, and so he left the temple puzzling over why the god’s name was familiar.

“The prayer!” he muttered to himself minutes later, as he walked through the streets towards the palace.  He recollected the morning that he and Grace had been called to an audience before the royal family of Graceland.  They had been called to receive awards in recognition for having saved Prince Grael in a brawl.  The award ceremony had opened with an invocation from a priest, and it had come from a priest of Huem.  The prayer had been memorable because it had lasted for less than fifteen seconds; Grange had never experienced any such public ceremony by a priest that had ever come close to being such a model of brevity.

Huem was the god of reason.  That too suddenly made sense to Grange.  The man he had spoken with had asked patient, reasonable questions, and helped Grange draw out his own potential answer to his problem, or at least the means to think about how to look for an answer.

Grange chuckled with satisfaction, then turned the last corner before he approached the palace gates.

There were guards at the gate.   Their eyes widened as Grange arrived and identified himself, seeking entry.

“We know who you are, my lord,” one guard immediately said as he gestured for Grange to enter.  “Believe me, we know who you are.”

Grange didn’t move.  “What exactly does that mean?” he asked with trepidation.

“You apparently didn’t check in with Princess Jenniline before you checked out of the palace.  She’s quite put out with your disappearance, and has raised a ruckus about your whereabouts,” the guard explained.

“She’s very good at raising a ruckus, it seems,” the other guard added.

“I remember the time she and Princess Hope got into that shouting match right here in front of us,” the man reminisced.  “Whoo, that was something!”

Grange grinned, though he felt his throat tighten, and he swallowed noisily.

“I’ll go see if I can calm things down,” he said meekly.

“Just let her lash the skin off your back, and you’ll be fine,” the first guard advised as he ushered Grange into the palace grounds.

“Which way to my tower?” he asked one last question, seeking directions.

“Around to the right; stay along the wall until you come to a reflecting pool, then look up, and you’ll see your tower,” the guard gave friendly advice.

Grange waved and began following the directions, walking for five minutes before he came to the reflecting pool.  He looked up, and saw only one tower nearby, a structure that had a flat top, evidence that it was his own new home.

He saw a path between two buildings, and he walked along the way, encountering no one else about the palace grounds as he went, until he was about to pass the end of one building.  There was only a garden between him and the entrance to the tower, and his attention was solely focused on that destination, when he heard his voice suddenly called.

“Grange?  Grange!  Is that you?” he heard Jenniline’s voice call from somewhere overhead.

“Are you okay?” she shouted anxiously.

“I’m fine,” he wanted to assuage her concerns immediately.  “I was just out in the city, but I’m back now and everything is fine,” he spoke confidently.

He heard the twang of a bow, but before he could respond, he heard the crash of an arrow striking the turf between his feet.

In shock, he called a protective dome into place, and held his sword ready to fight.

“Jenniline!  Watch out!  I’m under attack,” he called.

“From me, dunderhead,” Jenniline’s voice sounded closer, and he saw her maneuver out of a second floor window in the building next to him, holding a bow.  She shimmied down a drain pipe and came to stand immediately in front of him.

“I shot that arrow, and don’t think I missed your flesh by accident; I first took aim about three feet higher,” she scolded him.  “Now take down this energy thing and let me slug you.”

“I don’t think I want to do that,” Grange said.  He saw heads poking out of windows in the two buildings on either side of walkway.  They had quickly drawn an audience.

“Could we go somewhere and talk about this, peacefully?” he asked, as he bent and pulled the arrow out of the sod.

“There’s not going to be peaceful for you, unless it’s because I slit your throat while you’re sleeping,” Jenniline stepped up close to the edge of the dome.  “Now take this thing down!” she demanded.

Grange rolled his eyes in the darkness.

“I saw that,” she said in a low voice.

He waved his hand, and the energy dome dissolved into nothingness.  He held out the arrow, and she snatched it angrily.

“Go into your tower, right now, before I shoot again,” she hissed.

Grange quick-stepped through the garden, and took the stairs up the tower two at a time until he reached his own top level of the tower, huffing and puffing, with Jenniline not far behind.  He ran up the stairs inside his rooms, reached the roof, then abruptly dropped into a sitting position, breathing heavily.

He put his sword down, took off his boots, and Jenniline arrived.

“How could you walk out on me like that?” she scolded him, standing over him and looking down.

“I didn’t think you needed me anymore.  I thought we were done for the night, and I wanted to talk to Acton,” he said in his own defense.

“I went to fetch one of your princesses!” she thundered at him.  “And when I brought her back, you were nowhere to be seen.  I looked like a fool.”

“How can I make it up to you?” he asked earnestly.  “I’ll go see her right now if you want me to.”

“No, of course not; she’ll be with her beau by now,” Jenniline snapped.

“She has a beau?  Why do I even need to see her then?” Grange asked.

“Because she’s one of the princesses.  You’re going to meet every last one of them, and you’re going to give them each a share of your time so that you really find the best one to marry,” Jenniline answered.

“I’m not going to marry any of them!” Grange insisted.  “And if I have to give time to each princess, as in a date or something, does that mean I have to do something similar with you?”

“Well, what?  No!” Jenniline answered, and she took an involuntary step back.  “Don’t you even bring that up again!  No, no, no.”

He had managed to switch the tables on her somehow, Grange was relieved to see.  It was her turn to appear rattled.

“So you don’t think I’m good enough for you?  Is it my looks?” he decided to continue.

“Well, Grange, you’ve been chosen by a god; you’re good enough for anyone in Southgar.  And you’re not bad-looking at all,” she admitted.

“I’ve decided I will move into your tower,” she told him.  “Not for the reasons anyone is going to think, and I know they will.  But if I’m going to keep tabs on you, and you’re going to try to run around the city without telling me, I’m going to have to be close,” she announced.

You sleep on one floor, and I’ll sleep on the other, understood?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he agreed.

“Good.  We’ll start tomorrow night,” she said.  “I’m going home to bed now,” she announced.  “It’s been a very long day.  We’ll get an early start tomorrow.  We need to get suitable clothes for you, and I want to introduce you to my brothers – that will be interesting,” she said.

“Good night Grange.  Don’t leave this tower again until I know it, understood?” she asked.

“Absolutely understood,” he agreed immediately.

“I mean it!” she stamped her foot in emphasis, and then was gone down the stairs.

Grange laughed softly.  He’d made a good choice in picking her to be his counsel.  He felt comfortable that she was throwing herself into the role wholeheartedly, and she had his best interest in mind, it seemed clear.

He pulled off his shirt, then laid back and looked up at the sky overhead.  There was a quarter moon not far above the horizon, dimming the brilliance of the stars as they strutted across the darkness of the night sky, but it was still a beautiful sight to behold.